What is Tracking?
In reading instruction, tracking refers to readers watching the words on the page while someone else says them aloud. This can be done in person or with an audiobook. Audiobooks provide students with more independence and more reading time than most parents or teachers can spare. I recommend using both and responding to student preferences.
Why is Tracking Important?
Tracking is possibly the most powerful tool in a reading teacher’s tool kit. Tracking assures that the reader sees and hears the words simultaneously. Seeing words and attaching meaning to them IS reading. Meaning comes from hearing words in context. (https://time.com/3757022/learn-to-read-see-neuroscience/)
Tracking along with a book, ANY level, that the student chooses and finds highly interesting improves reading vocabulary and comprehension faster than any other method I’ve employed.
First, Use Phonics to Prepare for Tracking
Before teaching the student to track, teach the letter and blend sounds. However, this does NOT need to be perfect. The child doesn’t even need to sound out words, which for many dyslexic readers could take years, and destroy all desire to read. This initial phonics foundation only serves to ensure that the reader recognizes a link between letters and sounds and knows some of them. Tracking will strengthen this link once the idea is in place. This step usually takes a couple of weeks, not years! It’s best to teach the pure sound of the letter, without saying “kuh” for K or “aych” for H.
Next, Teach the Student to Track
Beginning readers don’t naturally track left-to-right or top-to-bottom, nor do their eyes glide smoothly along the lines. This must be taught; gently and patiently. A good reader sits next to the child and asks them to “look at the words I point at while I say them.” Never force a child to read aloud. If the child wants to try, that’s great. Otherwise, it teaches the child to hate reading. Naturally, the child should choose the book. After reading this way a while — how long differs from child to child — the child will be able to track without the adult reader pointing to the words. Now, it’s time to introduce audiobooks.
Woohoo! It’s Time for Audiobooks!
Now the wonderful power of audiobooks comes into play. There are so many ways to do it — a phone, a Kindle Fire, a computer, an iPad — or a grandparent who loves to read aloud. The key is letting the child know that if they look at the words while they hear them, those words will go into their ears and their eyes and get locked together in their brain. If you can afford the $15/month, Audible Books are read by outstanding readers and carry new releases, which most free services don’t have. Another great place to find the audiobooks you need is Learning Ally.
Tracking Beats Forced Oral Reading By a Million Miles
Tracking does not shame a dyslexic child. It allows the child to read anything they like. It fosters a love of reading and stories. Tracking provides the repetition of sight words required for dyslexic learners without mind-numbing boredom. In fact, research by Nicolson and Fawcett shows dyslexic learners remember a word after 1000 repetitions with a flashcard, but only 30 repetitions in the context of a story! (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dyslexia-learning-and-brain)
So, you can read aloud. Or you can hand your child an iPad with a story app that highlights the words while reading aloud (such as www.farfaria.com). Older students can use an awesome app like Voice Dream Reader (www.voicedream.com). However you do it, tracking will free your dyslexic student to soar!
Students tend to track until they become such good readers that audio feels too slow and they naturally start reading without it. Meanwhile, they haven’t fallen behind their peers in books read or vocabulary learned. Visual images of words are now firmly attached to meaning, and they even know how to say them if they need to. Beautiful!
by Yvonna Graham, M.Ed.
www.dyslexiakit.net
@GrahamYvonna
You can try Audible Books for 1 month free here (affiliate link)